A Trail of Blood & Money

Two Earth-shattering events occurred in early April—even if ignored or under-reported bythe United States mainstream media. In the first incident, the InternationalConsortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) disclosed that it has been covertlyfollowing the money of the real rulers of the worldby accessing files showing the flow of a staggering $32T in private assets held by the moneyedelites. Equally important was news that whistle-blowingwebsite WikiLeaks had struck again, this time uploading 1.7M official U.S. documents—many of which were secret and had been kept hidden away from public scrutiny.

ICIJ’s trove of 2.5M files and more than 2M emails is like a pirate’s treasure map, chartingglobal fiscal disasters: America, Greece, Spain,Ireland and Cyprus. Eighty-six journalists from 46 countries pored over leaked documents from secrettax havens for some of the wealthiest people in the world. These records identify world leaders, Russianoligarchs, wealthy Israeli families and homegrown“celebrities,” such as Clinton pal DeniseRich, the former wife of the disgraced trader Marc Rich, and swindler Bernard Madoff—all hiding behindsecret offshore corporate accounts in a maze of banks in more than 170 countries.

In a related story, WikiLeaks published its largestever document dump on April 8, totaling over 1.7million records from 1973 to 1976. Among thesedocuments are the so-called “Kissinger Cables,” some 205,901 separate letters and transcripts ofmeetings that are connected to controversial former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Key revelations in the data upload include new details about a top Australian official and the kingof Spain providing critical inside information about their governments to American diplomats. It also gives insight into U.S. relations with Israel during the Yom Kippur War in October 1973.

The Kissinger cables provide a wealth of new information about former National Security AdvisorHenry Kissinger, including his involvement in the1974 invasion of Cyprus. Among other things, they lay out through Kissinger’s first-hand accounts howhe facilitated weapons transfers to Ankara to help the conflagration. Americans won’t find it humorousto learn Kissinger wasn’t joking when hebragged to his Turkish counterpart: “The illegal wedo immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little bit longer.”

Ralph Forbes is a freelance writer based in Arkansas. He is also a member of AFP’s Southern Bureau. Contact him at rforbes@centurytel.net.